1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.
Which is the greater doctrine of the Christian faith - the death of Jesus, or the resurrection of Jesus? The apostle Paul actually answers that question in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”
Both of these key doctrines form part of God’s eternal and glorious plan of the salvation of mankind. They are inseparable, and are part of the same story. It is the resurrection which validates and confirms the sufficiency of Jesus’ death to pay the price of our sins.
Opponents of the Christian faith have always attacked the bodily, historical resurrection of Jesus, because if the resurrection is not true, then the entire Christian faith will collapse like a house of cards. Going back to 1 Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter of the New Testament, Paul writes in verses 12-22, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
As rumours of the resurrection began to spread, the Jewish leaders claimed that Jesus’ body had been stolen from the tomb by His disciples, but this was impossible, because they were expecting such a thing to happen, so they had permission to place a Roman guard at the tomb. Matthew 27:62-66 says, “The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while He was still alive, “After three days I will rise.” Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples go and steal Him away and tell the people, “He has risen from the dead,” and the last fraud will be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.”
So not only was the tomb well guarded, but we know from the Gospel accounts that the disciples still didn’t believe that Jesus would be raised from the dead. John tells us in verse 19 that despite the reports that morning that Jesus had risen from the dead, by that evening they were hiding away from the Jews behind locked doors, fearing that they would be next to be put to death. We also know that the Pharisees wouldn’t steal the body, because the last thing they wanted was for people to believe that Jesus had risen, so if the disciples could not, and the Pharisees would not steal the body, then who did?
The answer to that question is, no-one did, because Jesus did, indeed, rise from the dead.
Mark 16:1-3 says, “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?’”
They were not going to the tomb expecting to meet the risen Christ. Remember that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had prepared Jesus’ body for burial on Friday, the Day of Preparation, and because of the Sabbath laws, they had to be finished by sunset. No work was allowed on the Sabbath, so at the first opportunity they had early on Sunday morning, the two Marys and Salome went to the tomb to complete the task begun by Joseph and Nicodemus.
Had they been expecting the resurrection, they certainly would not have taken spices with them, and the resurrection itself would’ve been the topic of their conversation, but we’re told that their biggest concern was trying to find someone to help them move the stone so they could access Jesus’ body to give it the proper burial He deserved.
It’s possible they were hoping the Roman soldiers would lend them a sympathetic hand, but the resurrection was the last thing they were thinking about.
Also, look at Mary’s initial reaction when she saw that the stone had already been moved: “She ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.’” (John 20:2)
Peter and John then ran to the tomb. Most Biblical historians agree that John was younger than Peter, which would explain how he arrived at the tomb first, but he did not enter the tomb at first, stopping at the entrance from where he could see the graveclothes, and once Peter arrived and went in, John followed him.
The bodies of the dead were placed on stone shelves or slabs cut into the walls of tombs in those days, and this is where they found the graveclothes, lying on the shelf, almost like an empty cocoon, and the cloth which was placed over Jesus’ head neatly folded on its own. Just these details alone tell us a lot about what happened.
The idea of theft of the body can be ruled out. Grave robbers did not carefully unwrap the graveclothes and neatly leave them behind. Added to that, the spices and resins used would very quickly begin to harden, making it virtually impossible to unwrap a body without damaging the graveclothes, so the only way those wrappings could be left in the condition John and Peter found them would be if Jesus passed through them as He rose from the dead.
Three times in our text this morning we find the word “saw.” In verse 5, John saw the linen cloths, in verse 6 Peter saw them, and in verse 8, John saw them “and believed.” Greek is a more exact or technical language than English, and here we have an example of this. In English, we have the word “saw” three times, but in the original Greek, John uses three different words, which have different meanings.
In verse 5 the verb John uses means to simply glance in, or look in. In verse 6, the Greek word means to look carefully, to observe, and in verse 8 the Greek word for saw means to perceive or understand.
A simple way to describe this progression of John and Peter is to imagine being shown a complicated mathematical equation written down on a piece of paper. It’s there - you can see it, but when it is explained to you and you can understand it, you might say to the person who is teaching you, “Yes, now I can see it. Now I understand it.”
What John and Peter saw in the empty tomb was evidence of a miraculous resurrection. This was different to the raising of Lazarus or any of the other examples of people being raised from the dead in the Old and New Testaments. When Lazarus came out of his tomb, he emerged still bound by his graveclothes, and Jesus had to instruct those with Him to unbind Lazarus. Jesus’ resurrection was altogether different, because His was not a resuscitation but a glorious resurrection into a glorified body. Jesus didn’t wake up from death in His previous body, but as John Stott explains, He was “transmuted into something new and different and wonderful.”
Vernon McGee wrote in his commentary, “Remember that Joseph and Nicodemus had wrapped our Lord’s body in the linen and had sealed it with the myrrh and aloes, which made a sort of glue to seal in the body. How could the body get out of such an encasement without unwinding all that linen? Jesus Christ came up out of that tomb just like a seed comes out of the soil. Remember He had said that a grain of corn falls to the ground and remains alone unless it dies. Then new corn will grow out of it. But the old shell of the seed is still in the ground. That is what was left in the tomb - just the old shell that He had been in. He was no longer in that shell. He was alive. Do you remember that when the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus, he came forth from the grave all wrapped in the graveclothes and the Lord had to tell them to loose Lazarus? Lazarus came out in his old body wrapped in the old graveclothes. The body of Lazarus would have to die again. However, Jesus Christ came forth in a glorified body which will never see death. This is the Resurrection!”
However, John and Peter were yet to fully believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. That would only come that evening when Jesus appeared to His disciples, but the reality of what had happened was beginning to finally dawn on them.
We have the benefit of knowing the end of the story. We’ve read the last page of the book, so it is tempting for us to wonder just why the disciples did not expect Jesus to walk out of the tomb, because Jesus had told them many times that He would.
In John 2:19, in the early days of His public ministry He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” After His resurrection, the disciples remembered that He had said this, as John writes in verse 22. “When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
In Matthew 20:18-19, just before His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He said to His disciples, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day.”
So again, why did they not yet fully believe? They’d been told repeatedly this would happen, and now the evidence was there. The tomb was empty, and they could see the graveclothes, but for now, they had the same problem that we see with Thomas later. Evidence can change the mind, but it takes a supernatural move of the Spirit to change the heart.
Anyone who has ever tried to argue a non-believer into faith in Jesus will know this. We can’t visit the empty tomb and see the folded graveclothes all these years later like the disciples could, yet people are still coming to a saving faith in the risen Christ. Why is that?
It is because the Word of God, the truth as revealed in the Scriptures which will change the heart, more than personal experiences. This is not to say that our personal experiences are not important, but as we know, our emotions fluctuate, based on a number of circumstances. There are times we feel so close to God, we think we can almost reach out and touch Him, only for our wheels to fall off the next day, and we think He’s forgotten about us.
We know that’s not true, but those feelings or experiences are very real to us at the time, which is why its not a good idea to trust our feelings, but rather the facts. The facts we rely on is the assurance we find in the written Word of God. John 12:16 says, “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him.”
John wrote in 20:9 as he and Peter stood in the empty tomb, “as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.” He was referring here to what we know as the Old Testament, the same Scriptures the early church used to convince both Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, that He died for sinners, and that He arose again. It was the same Scriptures Jesus used as he taught Cleopas and his friend on the Emmaus road in Luke 24:27 later that same day: “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
As we saw earlier, Paul was to write later in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”
After His resurrection, Jesus did not appear to everyone, but only to selected witnesses who would share the good news with others, as Peter said in Acts 10:39–43. “We are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree, but God raised Him on the third day and made Him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” The apostles were appointed as witnesses to share the Gospel, and that witness continues today through the written Word of God. Both the Old and New Testaments agree in their witness. The Law, the psalms, the prophets, and the apostles together bear witness that Jesus Christ is alive.
What John wrote in verse 9 has created some debate down the years. “As yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.” Does this mean that John’s faith was not real because he just could not connect the Scriptures with what he saw that morning? The answer is that his faith was real, though not yet complete. The point is that the empty tomb provided evidence which increased their faith, but later that evening Jesus would appear to them personally, giving them dramatic and final proof of His resurrection. For a complete understanding of Jesus and the Gospel, they would need to turn to the Scriptures with the eyes of faith, and the same applies to us. Whatever witness was used to bring us to believe in Jesus, our faith must then be built up on the solid foundation of God’s Word.
The big question though, is what did the resurrection mean to those early followers of Jesus, and what does it mean to us today?
This was so unexpected, so dramatic a reversal of the heartbreak and devastation of the previous three days. This would take days to sink it. Weeks even. In some ways, it would take the disciples the rest of their lives to grasp the impact of this news.
In fact, for all eternity we will still stand in awe of the love of God so graphically depicted in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
But what a contrast that first Sunday morning was.
The sheep had scattered. No one really saw it coming, except Jesus Himself. His closest friends had abandoned their master in His most critical hour, leaving Him alone to carry the weight of the world’s sin. One of His own had betrayed Him. Added to that was the greatest burden of all - being forsaken by His Father.
After His death, the disciples soon lost hope and drifted away, just like the prophet Zechariah had written in 13:7. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” Some of them hid behind closed doors, thinking it was their turn next. John 20:19 says, “the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.” Two of them even gave up completely and left Jerusalem for home in the nearby village of Emmaus.
But then word began to spread that something amazing had happened. At first it seemed like sheer fantasy. Luke 24:11 tells us the initial reaction of the disciples to the news that the women brought them. “These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” The NIV translates this verse as, “They did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
Could such a dream become reality? Was the resurrection real? Might there actually be a power great enough to do exactly what Jesus had foretold? A power great enough to conquer death itself?
The initial report left them all in shock. Mark 16:8 tells us the women “went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Something very strange, yet glorious was going on, and they simply didn’t get it at first, but as the reality of what had really happened began to dawn on them, they could not contain their joy any longer.
That’s what the resurrection of Jesus Christ does to those who grasp the enormity of its message. That’s how explosive, how cataclysmic, and how world-shattering it is that Jesus is alive.
Now joy has triumphed over sorrow. Life finally has dominion over death.
As 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 says, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
And one day we will finally see the Prince of Glory face to face. There is coming a day when our perishable bodies will put on the imperishable. When the mortal finally puts on immortality. That’s the inexpressible joy that the risen Christ brings us.
Not only that, but the resurrection also addresses the daily pains and struggles we still face. As Paul writes in Romans 13:11-12, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand.”
Whatever pains your heart and weighs you down now, the resurrection says, “It will not always be this way for you. The new age has begun. Jesus has risen, and the kingdom of the Messiah is here.” And we know this because the resurrection of Jesus turns our sorrows into joy.
Vernon McGee wrote, “Regardless of where you are or who you are, if you have accepted Jesus, my friend, you are a child of God. If you are in sorrow and there are tears in your eyes, if you have a broken heart, be assured that joy comes in the morning. He is going to bring joy into your life. I think that when we get in His presence and look back on this life, if we have any regrets, it will be because we didn’t suffer more for Him. The joy of His presence will overwhelm any sorrow we may have had down here.”
We are more than conquerors because of the Risen Jesus.
Jesus said to His disciples in John 16:22-24, “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
The resurrection declares, for all time, that the one who has conquered death has now made our joy complete.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 20:1-10 and 1 Corinthians 15:1-22
Why is it important for Christians to believe in the actual, physical resurrection of Jesus, rather than just a symbolic or spiritual resurrection, as some teach?
The word “saw” appears three times in our text today (verses 5, 6 and 8 in the ESV and NKJV translations.)
In the original Greek, John uses three different words, meaning to look or glance, to study carefully, and to see with understanding or comprehension.
Discuss the differences, and the process of growing faith we see in John and Peter.
What did John mean in verse 9, and why do you think that they still didn’t quite “get it?”
How has your faith grown as you have come to an understanding of the reality that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead?